Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S6W-00439

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 18 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what the intensive care bed capacity has been in each week of 2021, broken down by NHS board.

Baseline ICU capacity in Scotland is 173 adult beds providing level 3 care. NHS Boards retain the ability to double their baseline ICU capacity to 360 within one week, treble to 585 in two weeks and, if required, extend this to over 700, subject to staff and supplies. The double capacity figures by board (excluding NHS Golden Jubilee) are given in the following table and are published in Coronavirus (COVID-19): modelling the epidemic (issue no. 32).
Coronavirus (COVID-19): modelling the epidemic (issue no. 32) - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Health Board	Double Capacity and Commitment to deliver in one week
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	20
NHS Borders	10
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	8
NHS Fife	20
NHS Forth Valley	14
NHS Grampian	30
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	76
NHS Highland	16
NHS Lanarkshire	40
NHS Lothian	55
NHS Orkney	0
NHS Shetland	0
NHS Tayside	22
NHS Western Isles	4

The Scottish Intensive Care Society Audit Group report on COVID-19 gives regional information on ICU admissions since the beginning of the pandemic. NHS Boards have flexed capacity throughout to effectively meet demand. In 2021 national level 3 ICU occupancy has peaked at 32% above baseline capacity on 02 February 2021.

The latest SICSAG publication can be found here: Scottish Intensive Care Society Audit Group report on COVID-19 2 June 2021 - Data & intelligence from PHS (isdscotland.org)

The government is committed to ensuring there is resilience and capacity in the health and social care system to aid us in our mobilisation, support staff to recover from previous Covid-19 waves, and to manage the need to remain vigilant against any future waves.

This is exemplified by our investment in health and wellbeing services for NHS staff, and our commitment to increase baseline ICU capacity by 30 to at least 203 beds.

I announced the commitment to increase baseline ICU capacity in parliament on the 01 June 2021.

Question reference: S6W-00338

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 16 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the UK Government regarding moving driving licence theory tests to an online system.

Driver and vehicle licensing and testing is reserved to the UK government. Matters relating to the delivery mechanism and conduct of the driving theory test are the responsibility of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) although they are required to follow the regulations and guidance in force in Scotland to suppress transmission of Covid-19. The Scottish government is in regular dialogue with the DVSA to discuss its progress in reducing the backlog of theory and practical driving tests that have arisen following the introduction of Covid-19 restrictions but we are not aware of any plans to deliver the driving theory test on an online basis.

Question reference: S6W-00437

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 15 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has for a nationally co-ordinated solution, either electronic-based or physical, which will enable members of the public to demonstrate that they have received one or more COVID-19 vaccinations, to assist in scenarios where such evidence will be required to allow access to travel, services, entry or participation in a variety of day-to-day activities.

Question reference: S6W-00510

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 June 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 15 June 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when the one-off pro rata £550 payment for personal assistants that it announced on 30 November 2020 will be made available through local authority health and social care partnerships.

To clarify, the one off pro rata thank you payment for all eligible health and social care staff is £500. We are working at pace with our key stakeholders to establish an effective way to pay Personal Assistants. We will issue further details as soon as this is agreed. We are confident that we have developed an online portal to reach all eligible Personal Assistants and we are aiming to have it open very soon.

Question reference: S6W-00059

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 17 May 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 27 May 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on when it anticipates care home residents will be allowed to be taken for outdoor visits by their designated visitors.

Restrictions on care home visiting have been challenging during the pandemic for residents, their families and staff.

On 20 February, the then Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport announced the publication of new guidance setting out an expectation that providers put in place arrangements to enable regular visits to resume from early March, having undertaken necessary planning and risk assessment. This guidance, ‘Open with Care: resuming meaningful contact with care home residents’ was published on 24 February: Open with Care - supporting meaningful contact in care homes: guidance - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

In addition to its focus on the reintroduction of indoor meaningful contact, the guidance also recommends that outdoor visits, including garden and window visits, are supported by care homes. Outdoor visits should not be viewed as replacements to or substitutes for indoor visiting.

Outdoor visits (including window visits) can take place either within or outside the care home grounds. Care homes can increase the frequency and duration of visits away from the care home as they assess it is safe to do so, taking advice from local oversight arrangements as necessary. Those meeting up with residents outdoors do not need to be the same two designated visitors as for indoor visits. As outlined in Section 5.1 of the Open with Care guidance, limits on group sizes should be in line with national Covid-19 restrictions for the general public.

On 17 May 2021, the Scottish Government published additional guidance on outings: ‘ Open with Care: activities and outings away from the care home ’ .

The general principle of the guidance is that, when a resident wishes to go on outings away from the care home, the presumption should be that these should take place in line with general population COVID-19 restrictions/ permissions relevant to the local area, unless there is clear evidence justifying a more restrictive approach.

Outings away from the care home will, for many, be a significant positive change. However, we must not become complacent. Outings must be carefully planned, taking account of individual needs, preferences and local conditions. Local oversight teams play a key role in supporting care homes to facilitate safe outings.

Support for essential visits is unaffected, which should always be compassionately and generously enabled by care homes when needed.

The Open With Care National Oversight Group is monitoring implementation of the guidance, identifying any additional support that might be required, and will report on progress in early June.

Question reference: S5F-04927

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 March 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 March 2021

To ask the First Minister for what reason more than 700 schools have not been inspected in over a decade.

Question reference: S5W-35350

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 19 February 2021
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 22 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many times the Arran ferry service has been cancelled between 2016, broken down by (a) date and (b) reason.

There are two ferry routes serving Arran, Ardrossan – Brodick and Claonaig - Lochranza.

There was 19,537 scheduled sailings on the Ardrossan – Brodick service of which 1,571 were cancelled with 173 additional sailings provided, resulting in total of 18,139 sailings operated.

There was 14,600 scheduled sailings on the Claonaig – Lochranza service of which 802 were cancelled with 231 additional sailings provided, resulting in a total of 14,029 sailings operated.

Further details are provided in the tables below, by reason between October 2016 and January 2021. The two routes are shown separately. A copy of the table has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 62253).

Question reference: S5W-35351

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 19 February 2021
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 22 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many written complaints have (a) it and (b) CalMac received regarding the Arran ferry service since 2016.

The Scottish Government has identified in the region of 500 pieces of correspondence received between 2016 and January 2021 relating to the provision of ferry services provided by CalMac on the West coast of Scotland. However, it is not feasible to ascertain which of these are specific to the Arran ferry service.

The Ardrossan – Brodick route is the busiest route on the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services (CHFS) network and carried over 3 million passenger and over 760,000 vehicles between October 2016 and January 2021. CalMac, over the period October 2016 to January 2021 received around 870 complaints, relating to the Ardrossan - Brodick ferry route, concerning both the ports and vessels. This equates to just 0.03% of total passengers carried on this route or just fewer than 3 complaints for every 10,000 passengers travelling on the service.

In fact, CalMac has a strong reputation for customer service. As a testament to this, CalMac have won a number of awards since the start of the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services contract in October 2016, such as Ferry Operator of the Year in 2018. CalMac have also received Worldhost Recognition for Excellent Customer Service as well as CCA Global Accreditation 5 years in a row up to 2020. All these awards are only made possible through the hard work, dedication and professionalism of CalMac staff.

Question reference: S5O-05145

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 17 March 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its roadmap for higher education students to return to university.

Question reference: S5W-35820

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 08 March 2021
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 17 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of schools not re-opening on a full-time basis until after the Easter holidays, how teachers will be able to gather sufficient evidence to produce estimated grades by the deadline in June 2021.

The priority at this time should be on learning and teaching to ensure that learners consolidate their learning and have sufficient course coverage prior to assessment.

On 16 February, the National Qualifications 2021 Group issued an update to the Alternative Certification Model providing clarity on the assessment approach to be adopted this year. The revised model included a further extension to the submission date for provisional results to 25 June to provide more time for learning and teaching and gathering of evidence.

SQA has reduced the evidence requirements for each National Course to the minimum to preserve the validity and public confidence in the qualifications. In addition, SQA published 116 subject-specific guidance documents across National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher courses to support teachers and lecturers in gathering key assessment evidence as the basis for provisional results. Teachers will be using a holistic approach and a range of evidence to determine the provisional results. They also have the flexibility to assess learners at times and in ways that are appropriate to their needs.